Garage rock heroes Von Bondies (Jason Stollsteimer) talks about getting signed to a major label, touring the world, and sustaining mental health while getting significant international attention.
Von Bondies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px6zUe3y7c8
SNIPPET:
Brett: How is your current morale? I know you’ve sort of stepped aside from music. What was the catalyst for that? Did you guys just get burnt out being on the grind so long?
Jason: Well my first real band was The Von Bondies, and I did that for ten years straight. And we kind of did everything you could do. Members had come and gone, and I was the only original member left in the band. And I just got to a point where there was nothing left to achieve that I wanted to achieve.
My goals were not lofty. You know, goals like, I wanted to play Ohio once. And then I wanted to put out a full length record. Then after that I wanted to play Europe one day. And I just ran out of things I wanted to do. Selling records and making money wasn’t one of them. It just became more of a job toward the end, even though the lineup was the tightest it ever was the last four years of the band.
I was the worst physical technical musician in the band, and that was my goal from day one. As the songwriter, I believe that I shouldn’t be the best technical musician. You should find someone better.
Brett: Absolutely.
Jason: And at first it was just a bunch of friends playing, and two of us weren’t the tightest musicians. We got better, but the last lineup, they were all amazing musicians, and I was the one they were covering for. I was just the singer, you know?
Brett: Well it’s fun to just have that kind of power behind you, that feeling of true glory.
Now, you’ve always struck me as one of the more mentally well-balanced songwriters and touring musicians I know. I would come see you when I was probably 20 years old, going, “Oh shit! The Von Bondies are coming to town?”
And you were always so pumped to talk to us little guys. I always really appreciated that, because a lot of times you go see the really buzzing bands on bigger tours, and you never get to talk to the band. But you’d always come out and be like, “What’s up, dudes?” and made us feel like we’d been pals for a long time. Was that your role in the band, are you a natural extrovert?
Jason: I am in those scenarios, but when I’m home I don’t go out. I don’t go to shows very often. Even if you came on tour, and we’re friends, I’ll go out to eat with you for dinner or lunch, but I’d only stay at your show for a song or two. I just never have been much of a socialite outside of what I was doing. I really prefer just one-on-one scenarios.
Brett: Me too, it’s overwhelming to be in a group, especially when you’re the guy, the singer, you feel that pressure to entertain and make everyone standing in that social circle feel comfortable.
Jason: And you gotta realize that a lot of people, at least in our genre at the time, there was a lot of alcohol and drug use, womanizing on our scene. And man-izing, because there were a lot of women in these bands. But for me, it was pure therapy. Writing music and playing shows was my cheapest form of therapy. And I really enjoyed that. As soon as I was done playing a show, I felt great, like how you’d feel after a good session with a therapist. So I wanted to talk to people. And if I had a bad show, I didn’t want to talk to people because I didn’t get that release you’d get through something therapeutic. So music was 100% therapeutic and selfish for me.
*hear full audio episode above.
